Edmond R. “Old Ned” Woulfe (1788–1876)

Edmond Richard Woulfe was born on June 15, 1788, in the townland of Cratloe, parish of Athea, County Limerick. His parents were Richard Maurice Woulfe and Ellen O’Sullivan. The family estate at Cratloe had been first leased in March 1760 by Woulfe’s grandfather, Maurice J. “Old Maurice” Woulfe. Prior to that, the Wolfe family had lived in Templeathea.

“Old Ned” Wolfe, as he was known, had at least three siblings: Maurice Richard (b. 1778), Margaret “Peggy James” (d. 1874), and Patrick “Old Paddy.” Little is known of Woulfe’s life.

He married Ellen “Nellie” Brosnan, of Islandanny, County Kerry, on June 15, 1812. They had two sons and seven daughters, including Edmond, Richard Edmond “Dicky Ned” (b. 1825), Ellen “Nell,” Johanna “Joan,” Bridget (b. ca. 1829), and Julia (b. ca. 1838).

Family oral history—contained in a letter written by Woulfe’s great-granddaughter Jane C. “Dollie” Wolfe and dated August 1956 from Cratloe—suggests that Woulfe “was rather a prominent man in the district in his day. Amongst other things he was what was called a ‘warden’ in Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal organisation in the thirties and forties of the last century.” The Repeal Association sought an end to the Act of Union, which had joined Great Britain and Ireland. Wolfe’s efforts on behalf of Repeal are corroborated by newspapers of the time, such as the Cork Examiner, which on December 30, 1842, reported that he had raised more than a pound for the movement. The Freeman’s Journal of December 19 of that year describes a dinner in which a movement leader “begged to introduce Mr. Woulfe, a gentleman who had come in with 10 [pounds?], which he had collected in the mountainous parish of Athea. The gentleman was received with three enthusiastic cheers, and took his seat at the festive board.”

Almost a century later, in 1931, the Limerick Leader reported on Woulfe’s contributions to the Repeal movement. According to Dr. Timothy Woulfe, in 1842 Edmond Woulfe ran for the Board of Guardians to represent Monegay in the Newcastle West district of County Limerick in opposition to the candidate put forward by his landlord, Thomas Goold. “And all who have any idea of the conditions of the time,” the Leader wrote, “will understand the magnitude of that venture and task that he accomplished in being about the first farmer in Ireland to defeat, which he did, his landlord’s nominee, for a seat on a public board.”

Woulfe built a family home at the Glen, Cratloe, in 1815. Nellie Brosnan Woulfe died in 1869 and Edmond Woulfe on May 13, 1876. They are buried together at the Templeathea graveyard.

Top of the page: tilled field, Athea, County Limerick, by Caoimhín Ó Danachair, 1939.

Selected Sources

“The New Ireland; Impressions of Changes; Views of Ex-Commissioner Woulfe,” Limerick Leader, August 22, 1931.

“Repeal in Newcastle—Grand Entertainment to Ten Catholic Clergymen,” The Freeman’s Journal (Dublin), December 19, 1842.

“Repeal Meeting at the Trades’ Hall,” The Cork Examiner, December 30, 1842.